Doomsday Traveler

Chapter 259 DIY
"What are we going to do?"

After parting ways with Hu Xiaodong and his son Hu Dong, when Yao Wei returned to the mountaintop with Lu Xi'an, she finally spoke and asked Lu Xi'an.

When Lu Xi'an was talking to others, she always preferred to remain silent and listen quietly from the side.

Although she didn't speak, she listened very carefully to every word Lu Xi'an said, and thus was able to remember it.

At this moment, she followed Lu Xi'an's example, carrying a carrying pole on her shoulder and holding a bucket in front and a bucket behind her. She thought it was quite convenient. If there had been such tools at the Tan Village shelter, carrying water would have been much easier.

However, given her and Lu Xi'an's abilities, carrying them by hand wouldn't require much effort; it would just mean making a couple more trips, which is no different from taking a walk.

"Make something for them, load it onto their boat, and make it go faster."

Lu Xi'an replied.

While he was talking to Yao Wei, he could also hear rustling sounds coming from below, as well as the voices of Hu Xiaodong and his son Hu Dong.

The father and son were awakened by Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei and could no longer sleep. They were worried that their bucket would never be returned, and they didn't have the courage to ask Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei, the two new humans, for it. So they could only sigh and obey Lu Xi'an's words, walk down and return to the side of the boat.

Lu Xi'an ignored them and continued walking upwards with Yao Wei.

Upon hearing Lu Xi'an's words, Yao Wei frowned and asked, "You're not going to lend the dog to them, are you?"

Lu Xi'an chuckled: "I'll lend them the dog, but they'll have to be able to use it. We already saw that boat on the mountaintop; it's just an ordinary wooden boat. How can it be electrified?"

"Or do you really think a dog can paddle through the water from the stern of a boat?"

Yao Wei glanced at Lu Xi'an but didn't say anything. She could tell that Lu Xi'an was laughing at her wild speculation. Although she was annoyed, she really couldn't refute it.

Lu Xi'an said, "I plan to make them a sail and install it on their ship."

"Of course, we have limited materials, so the things we make may not be easy to use, or even usable. Even if we do make them, their stability is uncertain, so we have to let them try them out."

"If it really doesn't work out, we'll have to give up."

"That means they have no affinity with the big coins we have, and we have no affinity with their potatoes, sweet potatoes, and barley."

He had actually considered going to East Island with those two if all else failed.

But Yao Wei obviously wouldn't agree, and he didn't want to worry her, so he gave up on the idea.

Anyway, they already have plenty of food, enough to last a long time, and the variety is quite good. If they don't have these three things, it's fine, it's not unacceptable.

Yao Wei nodded and said, "Mm."

The two returned to the mountaintop together, retrieved their tools, and Lu Xi'an took the tiger pelt off the roof of the car. He smiled and said to Yao Wei, "It's a good thing you didn't throw this away, but the pelt is in such a state now, I don't know if it will be of any use."

The fur was already too stiff to be processed directly. And even if it were made into a sail, it would probably only be usable once or twice at most.

Untreated fur has problems with waterproofing, water absorption, rot and decay. If used as a sail, it will likely become unusable very quickly after being battered by seawater.

Yao Wei said, "Yes, we can. Let's give it a try." She didn't actually know how to try, but she felt that since Lu Xi'an had brought it up, he must have a plan.

Lu Xi'an laughed and said, "Okay, let's give it a try. Let's DIY a sailboat and see if we can succeed."

Yao Wei said, "Yeah."

Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei then gathered firewood and started a fire on the east side, using the cart to block the view so that no one could see it from the west.

He put a pot of water on the fire, and after it boiled, he placed the furs over the pot and used the steam to soften them.

At the same time, Lu Xi'an took an axe and chopped down two trees, shaping them into masts of suitable thickness and size, as well as two crossbars.

— This kind of work is actually most suitable to be done at the foot of the mountain or by the sea, and once it's done, it can be directly loaded onto the boat.

The problem is that they need to soften the fur, which requires a pot, and they don't want to take the pot with them, so they simply do it here.

To be honest, it doesn't really matter. With their strength, they can manage to carry it all, and it's not a big deal.

While cutting down and trimming the tree, Lu Xi'an suddenly noticed that an amber-colored, gelatinous substance was oozing from the wounds on the tree, which he didn't know the name of, and a thought suddenly came to his mind.

—This looks like resin. Is this stuff waterproof?

Never mind, let's give it a try first. If it turns out badly, so be it.

With this in mind, after making the mast and two crossbars, he found many wounds on the trees and scraped off some "resin" chunks.

However, since the viscous, hard substance was unusable for the time being, he set it aside and planned to see if it could be used after being diluted with water.

After the tiger's fur softened, he removed the stitching, re-cut and sewed it into the shape of a sail, and then simply overlapped the mast crossbars to fix the fur on top.

Because he couldn't bear to part with his rope, he came up with another idea: he shaved a wooden nail with a knife and used the nail to cross the two crossbars, forming a rotatable cross.

With the sails attached, the direction can be changed by moving the crossbar.

Without ropes, if the ship encounters storms and dangers at sea, there's no way to immediately cut the ropes and abandon the sails to save lives.

Lu Xi'an came up with another idea: to carve a stress groove on the mast, fill it with wooden nails, and then pull them out at a critical moment and strike the mast with force to break it.

In this way, the entire sail can be discarded instantly, allowing the ship to survive.

Logically speaking, all of this was not easy to do, but fortunately Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei were both new humans, so one of them did the work and the other assisted, and they were able to finish it quickly.

Since there were some tears on the sail, Lu Xi'an tried placing the "resin" block above the pot and steaming it with water vapor. After it melted, he applied and glued it onto the "sail".

Surprisingly, this method worked quite well. The strange resin-like substance secreted from the tree not only glued the damaged areas together, but also reinforced the mast, the space between the two crossbars, and the space between the sails.

After Lu Xi'an finished using the resin, he tried it out and found that the sail really couldn't be pulled off the pole without using too much force.

He took the remaining water from the pot and poured some onto the area of ​​the sail where he had applied the "resin" to test it. Seeing that the water was not absorbed by the sail, he was relieved.

In that case, he could get more "resin" and apply it to animal fur, which should be enough to keep the sail afloat for one or two more times.

He got up to collect the "resin," but in the blink of an eye he saw Yao Wei walking over from afar, holding a knife in one hand and a stone slab in the other, on which there was quite a lot of resin.

It turned out that while I was busy, Yao Wei had already gone to collect things for me.

Did she realize that this thing might be useful?
"Thank you."

He smiled at Yao Wei and said something. Yao Wei smiled back, her beauty radiant in the clear moonlight.

Lu Xi'an took the resin, steamed it with water vapor as usual, and then applied it to the animal's fur after it dissolved.

After applying the coating and letting it dry slightly, a simple and rough sail was completed.

Looking at the final product, Yao Wei couldn't help but feel a little distrustful of Lu Xi'an for the first time, and asked doubtfully, "This... will it really work?!" Lu Xi'an sighed helplessly, "I don't know either, I'm just trying it out. If it works, great; if not, oh well."

Anyway, he had already made the finished product. Although it was messy, simple, and rough, he felt a strange sense of accomplishment.

He thought to himself, no wonder there were model kit enthusiasts in his past life; assembling a model kit is indeed quite satisfying.

"Let's go, let's go down the mountain."

Lu Xi'an shouldered the sail and the carrying pole on his other shoulder. He first went with Yao Wei to the pool to fetch water for the two people down the mountain before continuing down the mountain.

When they reached the foot of the mountain—or rather, the coastline halfway up the mountain—Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei saw a wooden boat lying on the shore, with two men, one big and one small, curled up inside, fast asleep.

However, the two were light sleepers and woke up immediately upon hearing the noise. They sat up on the boat and, seeing Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei, quickly said, "You two are here!" as they hurried off the boat.

Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei had already unloaded their loads from their shoulders. Hu Dong stared wide-eyed at the water bucket, surprised that these two new humans had filled it with water and carried it down before dawn.

The new humans are amazing!

But Hu Xiaodong didn't have time to look at the bucket; his gaze fell on something else: "This is... a sail?!"

"you know?"

Lu Xian asked.

If you know about it but don't use it on your own ship, is it because you're afraid it's unstable? Then you've done it all for nothing.

However, Hu Xiaodong shook his head and replied, "How would I know about this? I've only heard my grandfather mention it."

“My grandfather said that my great-grandfather often said that he wished the boat in his house had a sail. My grandfather also told me what a sail looked like, and I think it looks similar to this.”

"You two are really amazing, you even have a sail!"

Hu Dong nodded repeatedly, agreeing that these two new humans were indeed impressive.

Lu Xi'an said, "Stop flattering me. Whether this thing will even work is another matter. I want to install it on your ship and test it. Do you agree?"

Hu Xiaodong quickly pulled Hu Dong aside and said, "No problem!" He wasn't afraid that Lu Xi'an would damage his boat.

Or perhaps he had an inexplicable confidence in these two new humans, believing that they could definitely handle things well.

Upon hearing what Hu Xiaodong said, Lu Xi'an boarded the boat and gave it a try.

He had already roughly surveyed the ship and found that the bottom of the ship was deep enough to allow him to carve a cross-shaped groove in the middle without drilling through the bottom and causing it to leak.

After he finished chiseling, he shaved a corresponding protrusion at the bottom of the mast and inserted it into the mast. Then he contributed two nails he had found earlier, hammered them in, and locked them horizontally through the mast, thus securing the sail to the boat.

He also brought some resin down with him. The melted resin was still wet at this time, so he applied it to the joint between the groove and the protrusion, which stuck them together and added another ring for fixation.

"Come on, try it and see if you can operate it."

After doing all this, Lu Xi'an called Hu Xiaodong and Hu Dong over and taught them how to use the sail.

Of course, while he was teaching, Lu Xi'an was also figuring things out as he taught.

But to everyone's surprise, Hu Xiaodong and Hu Dong seemed to be born with the ability to steer a boat. They quickly figured out how to handle the sail, sense the wind direction, and adjust the bar and sail direction, doing it much more skillfully than Lu Xi'an, the new human, and the maker.

The small boat was already swaying and rocking in the wind even before it entered the water on the mountain.

Hu Xiaodong even figured out the sailing principle of the sailboat. While fiddling with it, he suddenly said, "This seems to work against the wind. Just adjust the sail and let it sail left and right."

"A favorable wind is even better! I wonder how much effort it will save! No wonder my great-great-grandfather always longed for sails! It's wonderful!"

Alright, this guy figured out the zigzag running technique against the wind on his own. Hopefully, he can use it effectively in actual matches.

Lu Xi'an said, "Why don't you go into the water and take a look? Just try it nearby. If the boat capsizes, I can quickly pull you out."

But Hu Xiaodong grinned and said, "It's okay, my son and I can swim. If the boat capsizes, we'll swim over ourselves, and you two can help salvage it."

Lu Xi'an smiled and said, "Don't worry, no problem!"

The father and son were truly relieved and immediately pushed the boat into the sea.

As soon as the boat reached the sea, he jumped aboard, adjusted the sails, and sailed away into the wind.

Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei watched from the shore, their hearts pounding with fear. The boat was being tossed about by the wind, swaying precariously and looking as if it might capsize at any moment.

It was a westerly wind at the time, not strong, blowing from west to east, which made the ship drift a little further away.

Then Hu Xiaodong manipulated the sails, turning the boat around towards the shore, sailing against the wind, and veering northwards.

After traveling for a while, he made adjustments, causing the boat to veer south.

By moving left and right at times, the boat actually zigzagged and got closer to the shore.

But every time Hu Xiaodong fiddled with the sails, the boat would rock and sway, almost capsizing.

Seeing how dangerous it was, Lu Xi'an couldn't bear to watch any longer and said, "Maybe we should just give up."

No sooner had he finished speaking than Hu Xiaodong had already steered the boat ashore. He grinned broadly, "How could we just give up! This is much better; it saves us a lot of effort compared to paddling ourselves!"
"You two are truly our great benefactors! You not only reward us with large sums of money, but also give us such a treasure!"

"Don't worry, both of you. I will get you what you need. Let's set off now and speed things up!"

He then called to Hu Dong to carry the water bucket onto the boat.

Lu Xi'an said, "Aren't you going to rest? Besides, this sail can probably only be used once or twice. It's not really a treasure given to you, so you don't need to do this. And if you encounter a big storm, the sail will definitely break. You'd better not have too high hopes."

Hu Xiaodong said, "It's a treasure! It's a treasure! Having this thing is a treasure. If something on it is broken, we can replace it, but having this thing is very good for us!"
"Besides, we've been at sea for quite some time now, and we know the sea conditions very well. During this high tide period, the wind and waves aren't too big, so it's safe. You two can rest assured!"

“We’ve rested, and even if we were to sleep now, we wouldn’t be able to. We might as well set off immediately.”

"Please wait for us, we'll be right back!"

After he finished speaking, he called to Hu Dong, and together they pushed the boat into the sea again. He jumped on with Hu Dong and steered the boat away.

This time, he was much more skilled at handling the sails.

Before the two of them left, Lu Xi'an quickly taught them how to abandon the sail and save their lives, and then he and Yao Wei watched the "sailboat" sail away from the shore.

They all had to admit that the guy on the ship was truly gifted and admirable.

Furthermore, they really hit the jackpot. By just groping around and messing around, they unexpectedly managed to build a barely usable sail.

(End of this chapter)